


Pick a Direction

by thepartyresponsible



Series: Hurt Less [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hockey, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Panic Attacks, Past Bucky Barnes/Brock Rumlow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:34:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27092110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepartyresponsible/pseuds/thepartyresponsible
Summary: Mostly, the panic attacks go away after the trade. But his body remembers those last few months with the Hydras.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Frank Castle
Series: Hurt Less [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977388
Comments: 42
Kudos: 258





	Pick a Direction

**Author's Note:**

> So, originally, this was going to be part of the [whumptober collection](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26762500/chapters/65287093), but I have bamboozled/badgered the amazing [somethingradiates](https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingradiates) into writing a followup to this one, so now everyone gets a series. We all win!

Mostly, the panic attacks go away after the trade. But his body remembers those last few months with the Hydras.

Bucky’s agent had been in talks with the Avengers for over a year. He wanted to go, and they wanted to take him. He could play with Steve again, just like he used to back in Juniors. Just like they hoped, when they were kids. All he had to do was get through the last few months of his contract. All he had to do was not sign anything promising to stay.

But the Hydras wanted to keep him, kept pressuring him to sign a contract extension. The Hydras never gave anything up easily, and Bucky was their top goal scorer for four years straight, one of the faces of their franchise.

They tried, for months, to put enough pressure on him to crack him apart.

But Steve was waiting for him, and the Avengers were waiting for him, and there was a way out, finally, and all he had to do was survive.

He’d been surviving the Hydras for six years. He had practice.

So he survived a few more months, and he’s an Avenger now. And everything’s fine, and he’s fine, and he’s going to stay fine, but his body remembers.

Sometimes, he wakes up, and his chest is so tight it feels like he’s sipping oxygen through a juicebox straw. He shakes, and he sweats, and he gets so dizzy and nauseous that he stumbles to the bathroom in case he throws up. He _does_ throw up, a couple times. Mostly he just ends up waiting it out, shivering on the tile, trying to breathe through it.

It’s the hotel rooms that do it, he thinks. He never gets like this at Steve’s house. When he’s at Steve’s house, he knows which team he belongs to, but, on the road at night, without the others around, he could be playing for anyone.

He could be with the Hydras again.

They could always trade him back. If he’s not good enough, if he doesn’t fit, if he doesn’t prove himself. They could just trade him back to Pierce. And Rumlow.

He learns, eventually, that it goes away faster if he walks. He paces the length of whichever hotel room he’s in, one hand braced on the wall, walking back and forth, back and forth, until his chest relaxes, and he can breathe.

There’s one night, after he wakes up thinking Rumlow’s in bed beside him, where he can’t stay in the room at all. So he pulls on some jeans, and he empties out into the hall, and he walks until his head clears. And that’s when he realizes he left his keycard in the room.

He goes still and breathes, lets everything shift and settle in his mind. It’s okay, and he knows that. He’ll just go downstairs. He won’t be the first disheveled hockey player to show up at the front desk, begging to be let back into his room.

He’s not wearing a shirt. He doesn’t have his wallet. Or his phone.

He’s not wearing any shoes.

“What the fuck,” he says, softly, to himself. “What the fuck, what the fuck. What. The _fuck_.”

He knocks on Steve’s door, but he must’ve gotten confused, because, when the door opens, Frank Castle’s behind it.

He’s in sweatpants, and his face is open and readable in a way Bucky’s never seen. He looks surprised. And, beneath that, he looks concerned.

“Shit,” Bucky says. He cringes back a few steps and then tries, desperately, to be normal. “Sorry. I just—I thought this was Steve’s room. I’m sorry.”

Frank looks him over. Just a quick scan, eyes dropping from the mess of Bucky’s hair to his bare chest, bare feet. His eyebrows pull together. “Hey, Barnes,” he says. His voice is smooth and deep, a little rougher than usual. It’s very clear he was asleep three minutes ago. “You doing alright?”

“I—yeah.” Bucky shrugs. He can’t keep his hands still; they’re twisting at his sides. “Just looking for Steve.”

“Mhm.” Frank’s staring at his face. There’s something about the lighting, about the darkness of the room behind him and the well-lit hotel hallway, that makes this moment feel surreal, makes Frank’s brown eyes look very deep and very dark, like Bucky could tip right into them.

“Sorry,” Bucky says again. It’s not like he doesn’t know how weird he’s being. He can _feel_ it. His skin is crawling with it. His heart, which had finally slowed to a reasonably rhythm, is staring to race all over again. “I’ll just---”

“You wanna come in?” Frank pulls the door open and steps back, and it’s like he’s got Bucky on some kind of string. As soon as he moves, Bucky follows.

But his body remembers this, too. Sneaking into a teammate’s hotel room at three in the morning. His brain knows this is different, but his body floods him with signals, want-regret-revulsion, hope-need-hurt.

His feet walk like they’re on a track, and he only barely manages to redirect himself toward the chair in the corner before his stupid feet tip him right into Castle’s bed.

That’s not what’s happening. None of what’s happening now is what happened before. It’s a new team with new people, and all that tangled history, all those bad decisions, they’re entire states away from him.

“Here,” Frank says, and he puts a Reese’s peanut butter cup in Bucky’s open hand.

“What,” Bucky says, staring at it. It’s so incongruous. So insistently vibrant. Bright orange, individually wrapped. Sitting there in his hand, making no Goddamn sense at all.

“I keep them for Wilson,” Frank explains. He scrubs at the back of his neck, like he’s embarrassed. “For every time he signs something for a kid without accidentally teaching them any swear words.”

Bucky’s not sure he wants candy. He doesn’t really want to eat at all, still feels kind of sick to his stomach. But it’s such a strange thing, the idea that Frank Castle brought him into his hotel room and gave him a snack. He tries to remember the last time someone other than Steve gave him anything at all.

“Thanks,” he says. He ducks his head, pretends to be really involved in the process of opening the package so he doesn’t have to look at Frank.

In his peripheral vision, he can see Frank pulling on a shirt and then rifling through his bag.

He could eat this peanut butter cup in one bite, but he takes his time, finishes it in three. He _does_ feel a little better, after. Like some deep, mouthless part of his mind has been struggling to scream for something and is now slightly appeased. 

“You cold?” Frank asks, and he’s holding up a sweater.

There are goosebumps all down Bucky’s arms. He’s becoming aware, slowly, of all the things his body’s been trying to tell him. “Fuck,” he says. “It’s the middle of the night. I should go. What the hell am I---”

“Don’t,” Frank says, a little sharp, and something sick-scared twists like a knife in Bucky’s stomach. “Please,” he adds, a second later, which soothes Bucky a bit.

Frank shakes his head, and those big brown eyes of his look hurt, just for a second. “Look, it kinda seems like maybe you’re a little fucked up right now. And it’s gonna fuck me up if you leave before you’re steady.”

“I’m steady,” Bucky says. He swallows. His whole mouth tastes like chocolate. He wants more, he thinks. Or maybe he just wants an excuse to stay here awhile longer. “I’m fine.”

Frank doesn’t say anything, but he holds the sweater up again, and Bucky takes it this time.

It’s an Avengers hoodie. When Bucky zips it up to the throat, the A logo rests right over his heart.

“You want some water?” Frank asks.

And water means even more time in this room than more candy would, so. “Yeah,” Bucky says. “Sure.”

Frank grabs a bottle of water off the bedside table. He looks at Bucky for a second, eyes dropping to his hands, and then he unscrews the cap and hands the bottle over. Which is how Bucky realizes that his hands are still shaking.

“Shit,” he says. He’s such a mess. He takes a careful sip of the water and then sets it aside.

What the hell is he _doing_ here? He barely knows Castle. They’ve been teammates for three weeks, and it’s not like he’s had much time to hang out with him. It’s March. They’re gearing up for a playoff run.

“You need anything else?” Frank asks.

His voice is so soft. Bucky doesn’t know if it’s because it’s the middle of the night, or if this is just the way Frank talks to any wayward teammate who shows up half-naked and out of their minds at his door.

Does he _need_ anything. Christ.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says. “About all this. It’s just—it doesn’t really happen that often. Less now. A _lot_ less now. But I get…kinda fucked up. Sometimes. Like you said.”

Frank’s sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at Bucky like he’s a play someone’s drawn on a whiteboard. His eyes are serious and focused, thoughtful. He’s paying so much careful attention to Bucky’s crazy ramblings.

A month ago, all he knew about Frank Castle was that Steve liked him and that he was an absolute nightmare to play against. He wonders what Frank knew about him. What he knows now.

“You’ve had a hell of a year,” Frank says.

Bucky’s had six years of hell, but that’s not the point. All of that is over. If he’s lucky, maybe he’ll have six good years left in his career. If he’s very, very lucky, maybe he’ll have more than that. But, however many years he gets, the worst is over, and he doesn’t know why he keeps dragging himself back to it.

“Sorry for waking you up,” Bucky says.

Frank shrugs that off. “It’s okay,” he says. He seems to mean it.

Bucky takes a few more sips of water. His hands are steady now.

“Steve helps you with this?” Frank asks.

Bucky blinks, looks up at him. “What?”

“When you---” Frank gestures, a kind of wave of his hand. If he has the words for what’s wrong with Bucky, he doesn’t share them. “You go to Steve? You said you were looking for him.”

“Oh.” Bucky shakes his head. “No. I just—usually I just stay in my room. But this time, I kinda—and then I realized I left my wallet and my keycard and my phone in the room, so. I was just gonna crash with him, probably.”

The obvious solution – the functional adult solution – would’ve been to go downstairs and get a new card. Running to hide with your childhood best friend is something Bucky should be embarrassed about, probably. But it’s not like this can get any more mortifying than it already is.

“Okay,” Frank says. “I think, maybe, if it happens again, you should go to Steve. Or somebody.”

Bucky stares at him. “No,” he says. “I mean, it usually goes away so fast. It’s not—I’m not really in any _danger_. It’s just in my head. I don’t wanna bother anybody.”

“I think,” Frank says, tone kind of cautious, “that if Steve knew this was happening, he’d want you to go to him.”

“Steve would carry my ass for the rest of my life if I let him,” Bucky says.

Frank opens his mouth, hesitates, and then chews on his lip for a moment. “Sometimes you can let someone carry you for a while,” he says. “Doesn’t have to be forever.”

Bucky rubs at his face. Steve’s already done so much. He’s _living_ with Steve, for God’s sake. Steve petitioned the Avengers management for years to get them to make offers for Bucky. Steve’s the reason he made it out. He can’t put more weight on Steve. He can’t risk Steve starting to regret everything he’s done.

“Or me,” Frank says.

Bucky looks over at him. “Or you, what?”

“If you don’t wanna go to Steve,” Frank says, “it can be me.”

Bucky would assume it was a joke or a come-on, but Frank doesn’t seem the type for either. And he’s so serious, in that moment, so keenly focused. Bucky has no idea what to say. It’s like all that concern in Frank’s eyes just pinned Bucky’s tongue to the bottom of his mouth, and he can’t say anything at all.

“But you don’t have to worry about that right now,” Frank says. “You want me to get another keycard for you?”

Bucky flinches. He doesn’t mean to. He would’ve stopped himself if he could.

God, he’s a fucking _mess_. What’s wrong with him?

He doesn’t want to be alone, he realizes. He doesn’t want another night alone in a hotel room, and isn’t that fucking ridiculous? That’s half his life.

“Or,” Frank says, quickly, “you could call Steve on my phone. I could text him.”

But now he’s got the possibility of Steve, overburdened and burned out and tired of Bucky’s endless grasping need, and he shakes his head, decisively. “No. Not—he needs to sleep. We’ve got a game.”

Frank nods, slowly. He looks around him. For the first time, he seems uncertain. “Okay,” he says. “Did you want to stay here?”

 _Sneaking into a teammate’s hotel room_ , he thinks. He gets flashes of dark hair, dark eyes. All that heavy muscle. Bared teeth in the red glow of hotel room clocks. Going back to his room, feeling used and sated, wondering how long he can make himself wait before he ends up in the same place all over again.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Frank says, climbing to his feet. “It’s better for my back anyway. Bed’s too soft.”

“No,” Bucky says. “That’s fucking—I’m not gonna wake you up, ruin your night, and steal your bed. What the fuck, Castle. I’ll just—I can go downstairs, get a card, go back to my room. It’s _fine_.”

Frank’s already dropping pillows on the floor. “You do what you need to do,” he says. “I’m gonna sleep on the floor.”

Bucky stares at him. He’s still staring when Frank settles to the ground and pulls the blanket up to his chest.

“Can you get the light?” Frank asks. “Unless you want it on.”

To get to the lamp, Bucky has to get out of his chair and cross to the bed. He settles one hesitant knee on the mattress while he leans over to click off the lamp, and then it’s dark, and Bucky can barely make out the outline of Frank on the floor.

He’s not doing this. This is fucking ridiculous.

He’s a grown man. He’s a professional hockey player. He’s an _adult_.

This is weird, and he knows it. He’s being so fucking weird. How’s he even going to look Frank Castle in the eyes in the morning?

But he’s climbing into bed anyway, crawling under the sheets. When he rests his head on the pillow, it smells like Frank, and it’s strange, because he didn’t know he had any idea what Frank smelled like. It’s nice, though, for reasons he won’t let himself think about.

He can see Frank from where he’s lying. He’s on the side of the bed farthest from the door, and Bucky wonders if he picked there on purpose, if he knew to leave Bucky a clean way out.

“Frank,” he says, kinda soft, and Frank tips his head his direction but doesn’t say anything. “You can come up here, if you want. I mean. We can both fit.”

Frank looks at him for a long time. “Do you want me up there?”

Bucky has no idea what he wants. He just doesn’t want Frank to leave, or to make _him_ leave.

“Okay,” Frank says. And then, after that, “I’m good down here. Goodnight, Buck.”

“Goodnight,” Bucky says. He closes his eyes, winds an arm around the pillow, and he holds on until he falls back to sleep.


End file.
